Reviews for Human Reflexes, Pathophysiology of Motor Systems, Methodology of Human Reflexes

The average rating for Human Reflexes, Pathophysiology of Motor Systems, Methodology of Human Reflexes based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-10-05 00:00:00 Steffen Posch Matthews explores the Cartesian model for psychiatry that treats the body as a causal mechanism within a deterministic conception; this model, however, is inadequate for a field which purports to study the meaning of experiences: mental illness is not a breakdown of the "brain" per se, but a maladaptation to our environment. As such, mental illness needs to be conceived on new terms: Matthews proposes a model based on Merleau-Ponty's "body-subject" conception of perceiving beings. Merleau-Ponty's human being is an embodied person foremost; our very being manifests through our presence, our bodily actions. For example, when I become excited to see someone I haven't for a long time, the pitch and tone of my voice change, I wave my arms, smile, and so on. My excitement is manifest in my actions: we cannot say it exists separately from them. Matthews' new model for a psychiatry of body-subjects is not the strength of this work. The first half of the book is an explication of basic philosophical problems, such as objectivity-subjectivity, causality-correlation, explained in terms of their relevance to psychiatry. Several chapters towards the later part then explicate the body-subject, while later chapters delve into legal and ethical implications of the new schema. Matthews' new model is not explicated in detail, it remains vague and at superficial levels of distinguishing between possible dualisms. Perhaps this is because Matthews gets lost in simple examples; there are pages and pages of examples taken from every day experience that are described "experientially". However, lacking any poetical prowess, these establish nothing more than what just a few sentences could explicate. The dualisms these examples try to uncover, however, pervade the work to the extent that they become definitive for the body-subject schema itself; Matthews for example, relies heavily on his distinction between causal-explanation and meaning-explanation. Overall, this work is indispensable to those interested in foundations of thinking of mental illness; however, the model should be carefully thought and deeply examined by those interested in its implications.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-02-15 00:00:00 Numer Patacsil I'm not sure I can take seriously and finish a book that includes, on its first page, the following statement: "Easy food, like easy sex, leads us down a path to waste and destruction of ourselves and the planet we live on." The author doesn't bother, in that preface to the second edition, to explain just what "easy food" or "easy sex" might mean, or why they (particularly the second) necessarily lead to "destruction," nor does the food=sex construction of the book seem particularly necessary for a discussion of food and disease. I'll give this one a try, as I usually like discussions of this and related topics, but I sincerely hope that the quality improves in the main body of the text. Note: after reading this a bit more, it's fairly interesting, but the language, author's weird perspectives, and constructions continue to get in the way of it being a really well-done book.